Extrait from Enfleurage

Enfleurage is an ancient, slow, delicate, deeply fascinating cold process in which flowers -gently picked when they’re most fragrant, most of which at night- are delicately laid on a thin layer of fat (organic shea butter, in this instance) making new recharges every day for on average a month or until the butter is saturated with the scent. Then this fat, the so-called “pommade” is repeatedly washed in alcohol until all of its scent has been captured. Finally it gets chilled and repeatedly filtered leaving us with so-called “extrait” from enfleurage.
It goes without saying that enfleurage is a labour intensive and time consuming technique, to date almost extinct, yet the results still today are priceless, as it is the technique that really enables to capture the actual smell of a living flower, far more than any other method possibly can.
So despite being less powerful and overall less tenacious than their corresponding solvent-extracted absolutes (if existent), enfleurage extraits with their unique aromatic profile add new natural materials to the amateur perfumers palette along with making an interesting studying and reference material for naturals enthusiasts and connoisseurs.